A Time For Action

Nearly 30 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "This
is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates
about freedom. This is a time for action. What is needed is a
strategy for change." If we are to dismantle racism, we must
establish a new, anti-racist ground. Below are five affirmations
for dismantling racism from an anti-racist perspective:

1. We must start from a historical perspective and not
just an individual one.

The United States was established as a white society, founded
upon the near genocide of one race and the enslavement of
another. Even though we have come a long way on our journey
together, the reality is that in 1998 America there is not a
level playing field. Despite landmark court decisions and civil
rights legislation, we know that the residual effects of slavery
and legal discrimination were not easily erased.

2. The focus must be on systemic racism and not
primarily on prejudice, bigotry, or bias.

Racism has to do with the power to dominate and enforce
oppression, and in America that power is in white hands. Racism
in the 1990s is a systemic phenomena. It does not require
individual racists. Racism is found in the system of economic
racism that we see as the gap between the haves and the have-nots
continues to increase. It is the system of racism in our
political, social, and religious institutions that produces
unemployment, underemployment, and wretched housing and health
care. It is the system of educational racism that locks many of
our young into a segregated system of learning.

The strategy for change cannot simply be "Cant we
all just get along." To dismantle racism we have to address
the issue of systemic racism.

3. We must start from the perspective of truth-telling
and stop the denial that racism exists.

White sisters and brothers in America must begin to operate on
the assumption that theirs is a racist society. To be white in
America is to benefit from a system of power and
privilegewhether or not one has ever uttered a racist
thought or committed a racist act. By accepting power as a
birthright, white sisters and brothers enjoy the benefits and
rewards of what their racist forefathers and foremothers left
them.

4. We must be color-conscious and not colorblind.

I cant tell you how many times Ive heard the
phrase, "When I look at you, I dont see your color, I
simply see a human being." I think this statement is another
form of denial. If you dont see my color, you dont
see memy history, my culture, my pain, the injustice of
racism.

I dont want simply to be assimilated into this culture.
I want to retain my cultural identity and to be free to express
it. A multicultural society cannot be based upon the ability of
one culture to overpower another or upon the principle of
sameness. A colorblind posture will not move us to new ground for
building a new agenda. The road we must take is that of being
color-conscious.

5. We must recognize that work for change begins in
the systems we are part of, beginning with our churches.

While I celebrate pulpit exchanges, choir exchanges, youth
exchanges, and dialogue groups between whites and people of
color, these strategies alone will not dismantle racism. We must
resist the status quo and engage in a paradigm shift to re-create
organizations that are multicultural and multiracial. To accept
the status quo is to accept the current system of white power and
privilege and the disempowerment of communities of color. This
involves intentional transformation and strategies for change
affecting all levels of our organizational life and culture.

AS FAITH-BASED PEOPLE, we are called to forge a new agenda for
dismantling racism. While it is not upon us to finish the work,
neither are we free to desist from it. If we are faithful to the
call of God, then God steps in and we are able to achieve far
more than what we thought possibleknowing that if God be
for us, what does it matter who stands against us?

REV. YVONNE DELK is executive director of the Community
Renewal Society in Chicago.

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